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It's Not Exactly Sweatin' To The Oldies But It's As Close As I'll Get

Since my stem cell transplant in April I've been doing my best to improve my strength. And while my recovery has been fairly quick, I'm not as strong as I'd like to be. From time to time I go for walks around the block. We have a big block. It takes about half-an-hour to get around it. I'll go for a swim in the pool. I'll go shopping with my wife. Wow, I sure get a lot of walking in then. But to be honest, most days the only thing I really exercise is my fingers...on my keyboard.

Writing three blogs and contributing to several others keeps me fairly occupied. My creative process is aided by music. In the morning I'll plop 5 CDs into the CD changer and I'm good to go for at least half a day. Used to be the exercise I got was walking from the family room, through the kitchen to the music room to choose my day's music and then back again. When my doctor asked me if I was staying active, I'd say "You betcha". Now though, I keep a stash of 15-20 CDs next to the CD player so my trips to the music room are less frequent.

The dufus Wall of Sound

But I think I may have found a better routine. My LPs - for those younger readers these are "long-playing" vinyl records from the 60s, 70s and 80s - are in the basement. I've decided to give these venerable but vital varietal vinyl platters a listen after many years of neglect (wow! Sopwith Camel!!!). And here's the great fitness aspect about this. Not only do I have to go down the stairs to get these distantly discarded danceable discs and back up the stairs to get to the stereo - great cardio - but instead of changing 5 CD's every 5 or 6 hours, I have to jump up off the couch every 15 minutes to flip the record over.

My vital vinyl

Wow. What a workout. I've got my own, less strenuous, version of sweatin' to the oldies. Eat your heart out Richard Simmons. I'm an evangelized, exercised, energized, expert. I'm a genius. Um, can you pass me those cheese doodles?

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Whoa! Bring on the Sopwith Camel! Your collection rivals my brother-in-law's! I have to stay out of his music room when I visit or I'd never leave their house. But I do get a good stretch, reaching those upper shelves. So the big question... is your collection alphabetical, chronological, by genre?

Quirks: The turntable? My wife bought it for me a couple of years ago, since my LPs were just sitting on shelves in the basement. Of course they're still sitting on shelves in the basement but now I listen to them every now and then. Not more than that cause it's so much work flipping them over every 20 minutes. Sheesh.

00dozo: Hey good thing I haven't got any 45s. You know I could kick myself. I threw all my 45s away a long time ago. My first "stereo" record player was a gizmo from the Columbia Record Club, which I used to belong to. In fact I just came across some LPs bysuch acts as Johnny Rivers and the Four Seasons that I bought through their mail order business. As a university student, with little money, I bought a Lloyd's radio/turntable from Consumers Distributing.

Nice collection! You wouldn't happen to have a little Sargent Pepper's in that old stacks of wax would you? Nothing like popping a platter on the table and listening to a little Moon River followed by Jefferson Airplane.

I remember the old Lloyd's transistor radios and, as a matter of fact, I think my dad also had one of those portable radio/record players too.

My first ever 45 (that I bought with my own money) was "Sweet City Woman" by the Stampeders (give me a break - I was young). Got it at "Sam the Record Man".

Speaking of old Hi-Fi's, we have an old Fischer cabinet stereo that plays all three speeds and has a pitch control! I don't dare turn it on anymore as it uses vacuum tubes and god only knows where I would find replacements these days.

Wow. What a cool music collection. I gave all my 45's to my niece...she has an old Jukebox in her rec room in her basement. I still have a few of my vinyl albums, although I don't listen to them anymore.

Alright, I'm impressed that you still have a turntable. But, is there a feature on the turn table that allows you to load more than one album at a time?

I swear I vaguely remember (42 years old) a feature like that where the albums were stacked on top of the spindle in the center and when the first album finished, the needle lifted, went back to the original spot, the album dropped down and the needle started at the beginning.

That's an impressive collection of music you have! I'm glad your recovery from the stem cell transplant is well on its way, I'm sure you'll be back to full strength very soon if you can just keep up with your busy blogging schedule.

My son dragged my LPs out of the garage about a year ago. Once in a while we put one on. AND... I was just given a whole bunch more vinyl from one of the wife's friends -- I haven't had a chance to look through them all, but I've seen a Phoebe Snow and a Fleetwood Mac in the mix.

Canadian Blend: Funny how our kids discover their parent's music. Two quick stories about how my eldest discovered mine. When he was about 1-2 years old, one early Sunday morning while his parents were still asleep, he emptied out my LP shelves and played them on his Fisher Price record player. The second was when he was old enough to know better and we had just moved. He and a friend decided to see if my LPs could fly like frisbees. He did eventually LISTEN to my music when he was older.

I listen pretty much exclusively to 80s music. It's the music of my formative teen years (graduated HS in 1989) and I'm still, as the best 80s blog is called, "Stuck in the 80s." But mine are all mp3. I wish I still had some LPs and tapes.

Jeff: 60s and 70s music form the backdrop to my teen years, pre-MTV. Somewhere along the road I lost my tapes - used to have quite a few that I'd play primarily in the car. If your collection's digital, I'll bet it takes up far less room than mine! ;)

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